


Watching Danny

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, POV Alternating, season eight related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 17:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12562320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: Steve has a new hobby... watching Danny. Danny’s completely oblivious—or so Steve thinks.





	Watching Danny

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn’t planned on posting something so soon, but this just poured out... and rather than edit it into something it’s not, I’m giving it to you raw, because it just feels right.
> 
> This is me working my way back into writing the boys. It’s me spending some quality time with them, after all the time and effort of my big, other-fandom story. So it’s a bit ragged and messy, it’s kinda long and a little bit lazy—until it’s a little bit frantic....
> 
> From my own writing warm-up as I started it: “...Just them and banter and confessions and resisting and hurt and love and wonderfulness.... Something slow. Something thoughtful.... Something lovely and poignant and magical....”
> 
> Hopefully it winds up being at least a few of those things....

Steve’s energy levels weren’t what they used to be. And as tempting as it was to blame the radiation, he wasn’t altogether certain that was actually the case. Because if he thought about it, he kind of felt he’d been more tired than usual and less energetic than usual for a lot longer than that. It had happened slowly, so he maybe just hadn’t noticed until it had reached an apex of some sort. But he was very aware of it now.

Thing was, he didn’t really mind. And _that_ , he kind of minded. But the reason why he didn’t mind was that he’d discovered a new hobby, because of the lower energy. One he might have missed out on otherwise. And that was watching Danny.

Steve had always enjoyed watching Danny. He’d always felt he’d been good at it, too. Watching Danny scrutinize a crime scene, watching Danny eye the oncoming waves, watching Danny read a menu at a restaurant (although that was more like “listening to Danny read a menu” because he never did it silently)... Steve knew the tilt of Danny’s head, the raising of the eyebrow, the narrowing of his pale blue eyes. In fact, if you would have asked him, he probably would have said that he was an expert in all of Danny’s gestures and mannerisms, all his expressions, his subtle shifts in the way he holds his body. Steve thought he knew it all.

Which is why, when he realized he didn’t, it was something of a shock to him—one that went very oddly to some place deep within him, and settled (or rather, un-settled) on a nerve that rubbed and sparked. And it was like it opened up some new door of perception Steve hadn’t even known existed, and everything looked different, everything was just slightly off center or something, and it was disconcerting and thrilling and he couldn’t get enough.

The first time it happened, they were at the park with Charlie. Danny’d been spending a lot more time with his son since the start of the whole awful, messy Rachel-Stan divorce thing, and it hadn’t taken Steve long to work out that if he wanted to have as much time with Danny as he’d become used to having, it was going to involve Charlie. Ever the pragmatist, Steve had stepped up his game and gotten on the internet and found all the cool places to hang with kids. The park had been a real find. Danny hadn’t even known about it, and Steve had scored major “Cool Uncle” points in Charlie’s book. (He hadn’t gloated about that, nope, not one bit.) It had this crazy net-pyramid-climbing thing, and the look on Charlie’s face when he’d seen it had been worth all the complaining he’d had to listen to from Danny. It was “too tall” and “too scary” and “too dangerous” and “just like Steve to find the one park on the island that could kill someone.” But eventually he’d calmed down when he’d seen how happy and carefree Charlie was, and he’d wound up almost apologizing to Steve—until that is, Steve made a poorly thought-out comment about taking Charlie rock climbing, and Danny had punched Steve’s arm so hard it had actually bruised (Steve might have enjoyed that a little too much, but he wouldn’t have admitted it).

But while Steve had been sitting on the bench, watching Charlie climb way too high for Danny’s taste, he’d caught Danny watching his part-monkey child, and Steve saw Danny have one of those parenting moments where you realize your kid is older than you think. And it was sweet and it was heartbreaking and it was so stunningly beautiful Steve gasped. He’d felt heightened the whole rest of the day: more awake, more in tune, sounds were sharpened, smells even seemed stronger. It was a serious high and he wanted more. But he hadn’t known how to do that, so he’d started watching Danny more closely, and sure enough, he’d picked up on more things than he’d ever been aware of. And it became something of an addiction, because the more he saw, the more he noticed, the more he needed  _more_.

He noticed the way Danny chewed the ends of his pencils in meetings, and he learned to anticipate the precise moment when he was about to interject an idea. He discovered the way Danny was always able to get the attention of the waitress at the Wailana Coffeehouse exactly at the right time so their order made it in before that huge group of tourists who’d just been seated. He learned how Danny found the perfect fresh tomatoes for his sauce at the Farmer’s Market—not by squeezing them, but by smelling them. And he figured out the differences between the various glances Danny gave Steve when it was late and he was deciding if he needed to head home or if he could stay longer.

*

Danny noticed.

Frankly, Danny was used to Steve watching him. He’d been doing it for eight years, and some of that was looking that could be passed off as a boss keeping an eye on his partner, some of it could be passed off as a friend watching his buddy, but honestly a lot of it couldn’t. But Danny was used to it, like he was used to Steve throwing himself off of buildings—it was just part of the territory.

It had changed lately, though. He’d noticed that too.

But Danny was more interested in another change. Because Steve had been slowing down lately. And more than a subtle shift in the way his partner was looking at him, _that_ had grabbed Danny’s attention.

Danny guessed he’d always figured there were two ways Steve stopped. One he’d seen too many times, and that included a stay in a hospital. The other he hoped to god he never saw.

But he’d recently begun imagining there might be a third way Steve might stop. In a more subtle way. A less... permanent way. As in, retirement. Because if Danny was completely honest about his own thoughts of retirement, yes, there was an element of _shit, I really am getting too old for this_ ; his own injuries took a hell of a lot longer to bounce back from now than they had eight years ago. But there was a ticking time bomb Danny’d been hearing for a while now, and it had started before that actual fucking bomb—the one that had got Steve sick. And it was in the vein of _if Danny didn’t find a way to get Steve to stop, it would be option one or option two_ , and that might very well mean no more Steve, and that was something Danny knew he would not be able to live with.

So, yes, the restaurant was something Danny’d always, in the back of his mind, imagined doing. But if he was pushing it now... well, eggs, basket, and so on. But he had to try something before it was too late.

If anything, those new looks Steve had been giving him, they gave him hope. It was a slightly awkward and vaguely uncomfortable hope, but it was hope.... Hope that maybe Steve could stop, and still go on. And that was something Danny very much wanted.

*

Steve was watching Danny from his office. Nothing super intense. Just... he was getting up a lot and walking back and forth between the others’ offices. He’d be in his office for a bit, take a call or two, do something on the computer, then get up and go to Tani’s office for a while, or hang out in the doorway of Lou’s office—in which case his gestures always grew more animated. At a guess they were discussing daughters and related issues. Either that or sandwiches. It was hard sometimes to tell.

But for some reason, today it was bugging Steve. He tried to be honest about why, and he thought at first he was simply jealous that Danny was giving all this time and attention to everyone except Steve. But he liked watching Danny and he was (supposed to be) busy, and knew Danny was trying to leave him alone to get this stupid paperwork done, and anyway, that didn’t quite feel right anyway. If he was honest, it was something about the daughters and sandwiches. It was doing something really funny to his stomach.

Maybe he was just hungry.

He was pretty sure that wasn’t it.

There’d been a number of times in the past month or so that Steve had shown up at Danny’s to get him for a case, and found the kids there, on a morning they wouldn’t ordinarily have been. And Steve knew Danny was helping Rachel out, and he knew it was at least in part that Danny was seizing any opportunity to spend time with his kids, and he understood that—at least in theory. The point is, Steve had been spending more time than he had before, watching Danny with the kids not at special times, not at typical “weekend dad” times, but at more typical Thursday mornings, trying to get them to eat something reasonable for breakfast and pack a lunch they might actually consume, and please do not forget your homework on the kitchen table.

And the thing was. Steve had grown very attached to those mornings. And maybe it was messing with his heart or something. Because Steve was pretty sure that what he felt was envy. And that made him very uncomfortable.

He hadn’t ever really been sure if kids was something he would do. He might dismiss Danny any time he pointed out Steve had serious issues when it came to sons and fathers, but he knew it, and he’d tended to think (if he thought about it) that it was better if he just stayed away from that whole can of worms. Which isn’t to say there hadn’t been times he’d thought it might be kind of nice. To have a kid. But it’s not exactly the kind of thing one does because one thinks it _might be kind of nice_. He knew that. Anyhow, the whole thing was a completely moot point now anyway. Because he wasn’t exactly the sturdy foundation he believed he should be for something like that. Besides. Even if he did retire from Five-0 soon, he was already feeling too old to begin something that lasted as long as raising a kid.

But something tugged at Steve’s heart when he watched Danny and Lou talk about their kids. He had to admit he felt left out. And he wasn’t happy about it.

Almost as though Danny’d sensed something, he suddenly appeared in Steve’s doorway.

“Hey, babe, we’re ordering food, you want some?”

Steve smiled. So, it had been sandwiches, then. “Sure, buddy, that’d be great.”

When Danny’d taken Steve’s order, he left him alone again. But when the food came, Danny came and sat in Steve’s office with him and chatted mindlessly about things while they ate, and maybe Steve had been hungry after all, because he felt a lot better about everything after that.

*

Danny’d been keeping a close eye on Steve’s eating habits. He’d been looking too thin for Danny’s liking, and he knew Steve was always careful to have enough protein, but he tended to ignore the other food groups. Steve didn’t have half as many food-related-weaknesses as Danny did, but he had a few—a good burger was one, and Danny’s beloved sandwiches often got Steve more excited than he liked to let on. Fortunately, Lou was always up for the famous sandwiches, so it wasn’t too hard for Danny to begin a tradition of Wednesday lunches. Tani, he'd been delighted to learn, was way better about junk food than either Chin or Kono had been, so the danger was rather more that they’d all side into less healthy eating. But Danny didn’t mind if it helped him feel Steve was being fed.

Since when did Danny care more about Steve’s eating than Steve did?

He sighed and tried not to think too hard about that.

“Hey, babe,” he called from the doorway to Steve’s office. “We’re ordering food, you want some?”

Steve looked startled out of a daydream, which nagged at the back of Danny’s mind. He’d been trying to leave him be, because he’d complained about paperwork he had to get done by the end of the day, but Danny decided there were more important things, and when the food came, he went to sit with Steve to make sure he ate. At least, that’s what he told himself.

But if he was honest, it wasn’t just food Danny was worrying about. He was getting a little worried about Steve’s mood lately as well. He seemed to have given in more than usual to that kind of resignation he sometimes had towards Danny. Maybe he was just being overly sensitive about it, but Danny was pretty sure that Steve used to fight him more on stuff. Or, fight him with more verve. Lately Steve seemed to put up a half-hearted-at-best resistance, and then shrug and go along with whatever it was Danny was insisting on. Whether it was where to order pizza from, or what route to take to a crime scene, or something about the restaurant, Steve seemed much more malleable than he ever had. And while part of Danny (obviously) was thrilled by that, more than a little part of him was concerned. Simply because that just wasn’t Steve.

Except that he found himself thinking, one evening as he sat in his chair down at the water, at Steve’s place, while his infuriating partner swam for too long, that maybe it really was Steve. That maybe he’d stopped fighting Danny so much not for a negative reason, but for a positive one. And Danny’s hopes for the whole retire-before-we-get-killed idea maybe had a chance of success.

He was getting a bit lost in that thought (and in a few others that tried to bring themselves to the front of his mind but he wasn’t entirely ready to face) when Steve emerged out of the water, grabbed the beer Danny held out to him, and opening his bottle, clanging it against Danny’s own, sighed and said “Ah, this is the life, eh, buddy?” before taking a huge swig and stretching his wet legs out into the sand so that Danny knew he’d wind up tracking beach all over the house. The fact that Danny didn’t mind that as much as he usually did should probably have told him a good couple things. But it didn’t, because, like I said, he wasn’t ready to face that just yet.

They ordered pizza and argued about the chemical composition of Honolulu’s tap water.

Danny slept on the sofa that night, and when he woke up, in the very early hours, he saw that Steve was in the easy chair, watching him.

“Hey, buddy. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

Was it Danny, or was there something slightly off about Steve’s voice? He sat up. “You didn’t, babe. What’s up? Do we have a case?”

“Naw, I just couldn’t sleep, and I somehow wound up down here.”

Definitely something odd.... Still, Danny almost smiled. Caught himself just in time. “Watching me sleep?”

“Yeah. Guess that’s a little creepy, huh?”

Danny sighed. Maybe it was just Steve being Steve. “No more so than what I’m used to with you.”

“Ha, ha, ha, Danny.”

Still, Steve was worrying Danny, so he patted the spot next to him. “Come here, babe.”

Steve looked like he might resist, but then he got up and walked over, sliding easily against Danny, who wrapped an arm around him and they wound up kind of leaning against each other like that until they both dozed off again. When they woke up a bit later and it was light out, they stirred a tad awkwardly, but then Steve got up and said “You go shower, I’ll make breakfast,” and other than the fact that they’d been touching, it wasn’t that different from hundreds of other mornings they’d woken up in the same house, made breakfast, and gone into work together.

But it _felt_ very, very different.

*

Steve had a hard time focusing at work that day. He wanted to say he didn’t know why, but the thing was, he did. He knew exactly why. Because, yes, he’d been watching Danny sleep. But Steve hadn’t been sleeping because he’d realized he was tired of watching Danny. That is to say, he was tired of _only_ watching Danny. He’d worked himself into a tangle over his partner. His head was filled with confused thoughts he wasn’t sure he’d ever fully understand. But he was increasingly unable to deny one simple fact. He needed to be with Danny. Not just during their days. They were practically inseparable at this point anyway, but that wasn’t enough anymore. He needed the nights, too. The realization had hit him square in the chest in the middle of the night, which was why he’d wound up in that chair, watching Danny in the pre-dawn light. He’d slept then, after Danny gathered him up in his arms on the sofa. He’d felt things smooth away, felt things settle, felt things shift. And those couple hours of sleep in that awkward position on his sofa had been more restful than all the sleep he’d had the whole rest of the week. And that simply couldn’t be dismissed as unimportant. It was more than important. It was kind of everything to Steve.

And he hadn’t the slightest clue what to do with that knowledge.

*

Danny couldn’t seem to settle enough to get his damn paperwork done. He felt... jittery. Like he wanted to climb out of his skin. Or scratch his whole body against something. _Like Steve?_ His mind helpfully supplied while he was too frustrated to censor himself. _Yeah. Like Steve._ Fuck.

He’d been fine, thank you, until he’d woken up and seen Steve sitting there, watching him, like something out of some... he didn’t even know what. Creepy romance? Is that even a thing? Geez. But Danny hadn’t been able to stand it, Steve looking so... forlorn? Lost? What? And he’d wanted—no, _needed_ —to be next to him then. To comfort him. Which he wanted to say he didn’t even begin to understand, but of course he did. He knew it exactly. It wasn’t even close to a new feeling for him. Allowing himself to not resist it was, however, a new feeling. And he wouldn’t think about what it meant that he wasn’t entirely sure he could go back to resisting it, now he’d allowed it once.

What that might look like, he hadn’t the least idea.

Fortunately, they got called out for a case, and there wasn’t much room for thinking about anything other than keeping each other safe and staying unhurt. Which they managed to do, so that was nice. And somehow, it put things back at normal for a while, and thoughts of how nice it had been, sleeping against each other, if somewhat awkwardly, faded into the background for a few days. But on Saturday morning, when Danny woke up to an empty and quiet house and nothing much he really wanted to do that day, it all came flooding back, and it hit him so hard he felt his chest actually ached.

He was standing in his kitchen, burning some eggs in the frying pan, when his phone buzzed with a text from Steve.

_Queen’s Beach?_

Danny grinned. Yeah, that sounded just about perfect. He wasn’t about to admit why, though.

_In twenty_. He wrote back, threw the pan in the sink, and grabbed some snacks from the fridge, tossing them in a cloth shopping bag to put in the car. He was changed into his trunks and out the door in less than three minutes, which would have impressed Steve who often complained that Danny took too long to get ready. But he didn’t need perfect hair to go surfing, thank you. And that itch? Yeah, it really needed to be scratched. And surfing was going to be the best he could get without directly admitting his feelings. So, that was good.

*

Steve hadn’t known what else to do.

He’d thought, for one mad moment, about just showing up at Danny’s, with coffee and malasadas and flowers, and _what_? Sweeping him off his feet? He’d laughed at himself while admitting it hurt a little too much.

Surfing, at least, was something normal. Something expected. Something they did.

It wasn’t enough.

They found each other easily on the busy beach, which probably should have told him something, but he wasn’t listening very well. The waves were kind of mild, but they caught a few nice ones. Enough to be satisfying. At least as far as riding waves went. They wound up sitting against a palm tree at the edge of the beach, boards stuck in the sand, shoulders touching, sharing the snacks Danny’d brought. And not talking. Which was more than a little strange for them. There were times Danny was quiet, times Steve was, but the other usually made up for it, egged his partner on. For them both to be silent was bordering on the creepy, and that seemed to be something of a theme with them lately. Which made Steve really uncomfortable.

He was pretty sure Danny could tell.

*

Danny kept sneaking sideways glances at Steve. They weren’t talking, as they sat beneath the palms at the edge of the beach. And that was not like them at all. They always talked. Probably too much. Mostly about nothing. And maybe that was why they were so silent all of a sudden. Because there was so much they wanted to say... but didn’t know how.

How do you go from one to the other—from what they’d had to what he, at this point, very much suspected they both wanted?

He hadn’t the slightest idea. The only thing he knew was that the press of Steve’s shoulder against his, backed by the sand-worn smooth trunk of the palm was too much and not enough at exactly the same time and that if they didn’t spend the night side-by-side neither of them would sleep a wink.

But he still didn’t think that saying _Hey, Steve, I think we should sleep together tonight_ , was really the best way to go about making that happen.

So, he did the next best thing he could think of. And he knew as soon as he’d said it he would regret it. Oddly, he didn’t care.

“I really need to get drunk. Wanna make Mai Tais?”

Steve didn’t even answer, he just stood up, grabbed both their boards, tossed his towel at Danny, and high tailed it to the truck.

“Go get limes and a pineapple,” Steve called to Danny as he tossed the boards in the back of the truck, and Danny spent one moment thinking how utterly absurd it was that he was about to go get a fucking pineapple, and if you’d told him, eight years ago, that this was what he’d be doing now, he would have punched you.

He might have used the sirens on the way. But don’t tell Steve that.

*

Steve rinsed off the boards with the hose, leaving them leaning against the railing and letting himself in through the back door, sprinting up the stairs and rinsing off, throwing on some shorts and flinging a tee over his shoulder as he took the stairs back down, two at a time, and landed in the kitchen to set up the drinks.

Fortunately, Steve was pretty hard core about keeping his various rums stocked (one of many things he’d learned from Joe), and he’d made a batch of homemade Orgeat (according to his grandmother’s recipe) at the beginning the summer so he had plenty on hand, and he wasn’t such a dolt as to not have a back-up bottle of orange Curaçao in his pantry (it wasn’t cold, so he tossed it in a bowl with some ice and salt and water in the sink). He pulled on his tee shirt and got out his favorite old fashioned glasses, and was deciding if he wanted to crush some ice or go with the cubes when he heard the Camaro pull up.

Danny must have sped, or used the sirens, or both, because that was impressive timing. Tossing the bag of limes on the counter, Danny handed Steve the pineapple with an expression far too serious for tropical fruit—though wasn’t that just perfectly Danny—and ran up stairs, Steve guessed, to shower. That made his pulse, which had already been racing, speed up impossibly, and he spent maybe five seconds debating between making the Mai Tais one at a time or making a pitcher of them. (Pitcher won, in case that wasn’t obvious.)

He was hitting a tea towel of ice cubes with the rolling pin when Danny came back down, hair slicked back, face flushed, and— _fuck_ —wearing a pair of Steve’s shorts and one of his Navy tees. It wasn’t the first time one of them had borrowed clothing from the other, for the sake of expediency (or over-drinking and _not_ driving home). They’d been doing that for years. But this was different. He wasn’t sure how, or why. But he just knew. It was something about the way Danny looked.

“Where?” Steve managed to ask, hoping his voice didn’t sound too strange.

“Upstairs lanai?” Danny suggested, and Steve tried really, _really_ hard not to hope he’d chosen that location because of the proximity to Steve’s bed.

He failed. Utterly.

Assembling the tray with glasses, ice bucket, pitcher of drink, and plate of pineapple slices (they were not, of course, necessary, but he’d learned about five years ago that Danny really _did_ like pineapple a lot), Steve followed Danny up the stairs and out to the lanai where he saw that Danny was tossing the throw blankets out over the wicker chairs, and he’d clearly wiped down the glass-topped table. Steve put the tray down, and they stood there, a tiny bit awkwardly.

“So.” Steve looked at Danny, who was fidgeting.

“Oh, just pour me a fucking drink, would you?” Danny flomped down on one of the chairs, and Steve had to bite his tongue to keep from saying something he might regret.

Once Steve had poured them each a glass, garnished with a slice of pineapple, he pointedly sat down on the vacant love seat and didn’t—really, he didn’t—glare at Danny.

Danny basically downed his glass in two gulps and then reached out for the pitcher to refill. Once he had, he sat back a little more at ease and fixed Steve with a steamy look that didn’t do much to slow his pulse rate.

“So...” Steve tried again, and Danny rolled his eyes, sighing loudly. Steve bit back a smile. “Alright... should I just shut up?”

“Yeah, probably.”

Steve grinned. “Okay.”

Danny snorted, and drank half his second Mai Tai, then plucked the pineapple off the rim and sucked on it, rather profanely, if Steve said so himself.

Steve finished his first drink and poured another, watching Danny’s reaction (and not the glass) closely.

“Impressive,” Danny whispered, as Steve poured the drink, not looking at it once, filled his glass perfectly to the top, without spilling a drop.

“Not a Navy man for nothing, Daniel,” Steve replied, sitting back, kicking his bare feet up on the other arm of the love seat.

“You. Are. A. Jackass.”

Steve smirked. “And you love me.”

SHIT.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

Danny had gone completely still. Then he leaned forward. Set his drink down very carefully. Sat with his elbows on his knees, fixing Steve with a gaze that was so heated, he was afraid the wicker beneath him would catch fire.

“What if I do?” Danny finally asked.

“Then I think we should do something about that. Probably. You know. If you want.” Steve swallowed. He was amazed he could.

Danny leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out, under the glass table, wiggling, Steve noticed, his delectable toes... uh, I mean.... _Shit_.

“Like what, babe?” Danny asked, his voice syrupy sweet like the guava syrup at the Wailana Coffeehouse.

Fuck. Since when was Danny such a tease? Steve’s blood was thrumming in his veins. Trying to drown it out, he took a huge drink of his Mai Tai, nearly choked, saw Danny hide a laugh, and set his glass down on the table.

Enough was enough. He stood, heard Danny’s unwilling gasp. Walking towards Danny, Steve had to stop and gather himself. He hadn’t had that much to drink—okay, he’d sampled each of the ingredients before he’d mixed the drinks, and he’d had half a glass of the finished product for quality control (Joe would have had his hide if he hadn’t checked). While Steve was paused, he realized, _completely_ , what he was about to do. And that propelled him forward. He walked over to Danny. Stood over his outstretched legs. Looked down at him. Saw eight years of suppressed desire. Eight years of buried lust. A lifetime of longing. In one five-foot-five frame. He bent down, yanked on his Navy tee, pulling Danny to his feet—the gasp, the grunt, the groan that flew from Danny’s lips went fully to Steve’s gut—and he turned Danny around, and walked him backwards up against the side of the house, pressing into him, making it perfectly clear what watching Danny did to him. What waiting, being patient, did to him.

And Danny, looking up at Steve, leaning back into the wall, grinned. And suddenly, Steve was lost. Utterly, completely, totally, _lost_.

*

“Really, babe?” Danny eventually said, watching as Steve stood, without moving, locked against Danny, unable to do anything other than look far too intimately into Danny’s eyes. _Well, shit_. Steve had gotten them this far. (Although, Danny had pressed, Danny had asked. Danny had, if he was completely honest, _demanded_.) But Steve seemed to have stalled. And Danny didn’t know what to do about that. So he pushed back just a little, and let Steve settle. And, Danny did what Danny did best. He started talking. To Steve. Rambling. From his heart. Unfiltered. Unadorned. Not trying, not forcing, just allowing. And it was heartfelt and it was honest and it was completely naked. And it went something like this:

“I know you’ve been watching me. More than anyone has, ever. From the very beginning. From the start. You’ve seen me the way no one has ever seen me. And I have allowed it, and I don’t know why, but it’s been okay. I’ve hidden from Matty, I’ve hidden from Bridget, from mom, from Rachel, from Grace. But I can’t hide from you, Steve. I never have been able to.” He paused and Steve stepped back, just one step, but it was enough space for Danny to breathe. He took a deep, calming breath that wasn’t calming at all. “And, the thing is, I don’t want to hide anymore. I’m too old, I’m too tired. I can’t keep doing this, I can’t pretend to be thirty-something and not fucking mind anymore.” Steve hadn’t moved. As though if he moved he might fall over. And somehow, that gave Danny what he needed to continue. “I can’t do this alone anymore. And when I say alone, I mean without you in my bed. It has always been about you at my side. During the day, fine. But now, at night, I can’t let go of the fucking day without you by my side. I’m just too old to do this anymore.”

*

Steve had been watching. More closely than he ever had. More intensely than he ever had. And he felt like he hadn’t noticed a single thing, because all he’d been able to _see_ were Danny’s words. Those words, which felt like they’d gone straight through Steve’s body, through his blood, and directly imprinted themselves onto his heart. But it felt more like they’d been there already. Because he’d known. All of it.

He took that one step back closer to Danny. Watched as Danny held his breath. And another step closer so they were pressed together again. Watched as Danny’s eyes flickered to his lips. Steve licked them, pressed them together, and then, ducking his head just enough to lower his lips to Danny’s, he kissed him. Softly at first, then as Danny’s lips parted, Steve dove deeper. Searching. Wanting to find what he’d been looking for this whole time.

“Danny,” he whispered as he pulled back just for a second, to breathe. “ _Danny_....”

“Shhhh,” Danny hissed, tugging Steve closer, sliding his arms behind Steve’s head and forcing their lips back together.

It was too frantic, too much, too... everything. They seemed to realize it at the same moment and broke apart, Steve taking one big step backwards, Danny falling against the wall.

“This is....” Danny struggled for air. Steve knew how he felt. It was like drowning. Only he wanted to go back, wanted _more_. “This is....” He looked searchingly at Steve, and it seemed to Steve that Danny looked lost. Like he didn’t know which way was up anymore. And a little bit like he didn’t care.

“Need another drink?”

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

Steve moved to get their drinks, but Danny stayed against the wall, as though it was holding him up. Which maybe it was, Steve didn’t know. He’d felt before like he was going to fall over if the wind so much as blew, but now he felt more like he wasn’t even touching the ground. Still, he was dizzy and overwhelmed, and his senses weren’t heighted, they were more like blown apart, like everything was frazzled and sparking and completely insubstantial. Oddly, he felt the booze would stabilize him.

Danny still hadn’t moved, so Steve took his drink over to him. He looked at the drinks in Steve’s hands, looked at Steve, his face unreadable, which spooked Steve; at this point, Steve would have thought he’d known all Danny’s expressions at least a little. Sliding down against the wall to sitting, Danny let out something between a sob and a sigh, then glanced up at the still-standing Steve with a look that was collapsing towards something approaching desperation.

Leaning down to hand Danny his drink, Steve sat carefully, just far enough away from Danny that he wasn’t touching him, close enough that he could move just the tiniest bit and be against him. He took a sip of his drink, and it helped to ground him in something physical that wasn’t Danny’s lips on his, and that was something he needed. Danny still hadn’t taken a sip, he was looking at his glass as though he wasn’t sure what it was. Steve sighed.

“Hey, buddy.”

Danny looked up at him. And something seemed to fall from his eyes. Without looking away, Danny put the glass to his lips and didn’t stop until it was empty. “What are we doing?” He handed the glass back to Steve, who wasn’t sure if that meant he wanted more or not, so he put it down on the floor between them, reached over for the pitcher, and put that down next to the glass.

“We are having drinks,” Steve began, watching Danny for any of the expressions or gestures or signs that he knew, something to anchor him, something to clue him in, something to give him an idea of how to proceed. But still Danny was giving him nothing he recognized.

“And then what?” Danny asked, his breaths sharp and shallow.

Steve set his drink aside. “Whatever you want.”

It clearly wasn’t the reply Danny’d been expecting. There’d been a flash of something Steve knew but couldn’t quite name before it faded too quickly and left another inscrutable look in Danny’s eyes. “What if I don’t know what that is?” He finally asked.

“Then we’ll figure it out,” Steve replied, calmly, softly.

“We.”

“Of course _we_ , Danny.”

Steve was no expert on relationships, he would never dream of thinking that for even a second. But he saw something about Danny that maybe he’d been missing all these years. Because, while dependence on each other in a team was something that was drilled into Steve’s bones (another thing he could pin on Joe), while he knew that _we_ was vital for his survival.... It was a concept that was still, after all this time, more than a little foreign and uncomfortable for Danny. And maybe he’d softened a little towards it in his work relationships (Steve had been proud of Danny’s relationship with Tani so far) but Steve realized that it wasn’t something Danny had ever had in a romantic relationship. He’d seen enough of Rachel over the past months to know that their marriage had not been a _we_. It was something he should have realized long ago. But it saw it now, and it showed him a path forward, and that was something Steve knew how to use to his advantage. Give him even the slightest path and he can absolutely make the most of it.

So he did.

“That’s what it’s about, Danny. You’re talking about me being by your side. You get that that’s what it means. It means being _us_ , being a ‘we.’ And you’re right, we have that during the day. And I think we’re pretty damned good at it. And I have a feeling that the rest of it won’t be as hard as maybe you’re thinking it will be. Because it’s not about you, or me. It’s about _us_ , together. Partners, buddy. Which we already are. It’s just another version of that.”

“We suck at being partners, babe.” Danny sounded tired. Steve understood that. But he also knew that Danny got more negative when he was tired.

“You don’t really think that.”

“Don’t I?” There was a bitterness to his voice that almost made Steve flinch. But he dismissed it, pushed past it, because he knew.

“Of course you don’t, Danny. Or you never would have asked me to be yours.”

*

The truth of that hit Danny hard in the gut, forcing an uncomfortable laugh to spill out of him almost violently. But he kinda thought Steve had a point. And Danny was very painfully aware of the many reasons he had asked Steve to be his partner. And maybe it was the rum, maybe it was just finally well-past time he admitted it. But he felt like he couldn’t keep anything within him right now, so it was probably inevitable that a confession about his motivation came spilling out.

“You know what I want?” And he poured himself another glass of the Mai Tai, looking at the liquid, not looking at Steve. “I want you to not die.” He put the pitcher down. Picked up his glass, stared into the golden liquid, swirled it around, took a sip. Put the glass down, and then, only then, looked at Steve. “That’s what I want. I want you to live. To not die. That’s why I asked you to be my partner. Because you do not know when to stop, and I need for you to stop on your own before something makes you stop permanently. Because _I_ need to stop. And I can’t do it alone. I can’t do it without you. I need there to be an us that’s not about guns and explosions and cases and witnesses and hackers and death. Because I don’t know how to do anything anymore that’s not with you.”

“That’s _we_ , Danny.”

“But we suck at it.” He knew he was almost whining. Not quite. But close.

“What make you say that?” He was amused, but so warm and so patient.

Danny laughed and gestured around him. “Um, I dunno, eight years of _us_?”

“So our relationship doesn’t look like what you think it should. It never has.”

“I don’t think I know _how_ to be in a relationship.” He paused. Looked closely at Steve. “I don’t think either of us does.”

Steve shook his head. “No one does, Danny.”

“How is that not completely fucked up?”

“Because it’s not.” Steve was smiling so warmly, Danny felt flushed. “Because it’s not what matters.”

“And what’s that?”

“Us. We. Partners. Call it whatever you want. You keep saying it, you know what it is you want, you’ve said it like twelve times, you just are fighting yourself because you think it’s somehow not what it should be. Well, nothing is, Danny. Nothing is what it should be, and that’s not the point. The point is, like you say. You don’t know how to not do us. And I don’t either—no, you know what, that doesn’t even matter, because I don’t _want_ to. My life is not what I thought it would be, it hasn’t been for as long as I can remember. But that’s not the point of life, Danny. If it was, no one would last very long at all. It seems to me that the point is, we do know what we want. And if that doesn’t look like we thought it would, I really don’t see how that matters at all.” Steve took a deep breath. Danny was fixed on his face. Captivated. Another deep breath, and he pushed forward.

“And, you’re right. I’ve been watching you. Especially lately. And I’ve been an idiot about it, because I’ve been seeing all the things I never was sure if I wanted... kids, being a dad, that normal everyday domestic thing that I had torn away from me when I was a kid—and maybe that’s really what I’m still upset about. But you know what? I don’t even think it’s those things that I want. I think I might worry that if I don’t have them I’ll regret it, and maybe I will, but that’s not the point. Because what I’ve been watching is you. What I want is you. And the how and the details and all of that just don’t fucking matter. Because I don’t want anything other than us. And I don’t care what it looks like. I only care what it feels like. And I really like how it feels when we’re together.”

Danny couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. And he was blown away by Steve’s words. And not because there was this idea that Steve wasn’t good with words or good with relationships because that was complete bullshit and Danny’d known that for years. He was blown away by it because it was so much what had been in his own heart. And Steve had pulled it out, just kept tugging on that loose thread until it all unraveled in his lap, and here’s where they were. A tangled mess of he didn’t even know what, and maybe that just didn’t matter at all. Because it was what they had, and that was absolutely everything.

Danny moved forward, onto his knees. He picked up the cups and the pitcher and put them to the side. And he leaned in towards Steve, pressing him backwards, pressing him onto the floor.

“This is what I want, babe.” He bent down for a quick kiss. “I don’t know what it is, but you’re right, that doesn’t matter. All I know is that this is what I want.”

Steve reached his arms up around Danny, holding him tightly, but not moving to kiss him. And they looked at each other, and Danny almost wanted to laugh, but it felt like the most serious, the most powerful, the most important moment in his life so far, and he didn’t realize it till he saw his tears splashing on Steve’s cheeks, and then he did laugh, but then—then, Steve somehow stood, sweeping Danny up in his arms, and carried him into his room.

“We don’t have to do anything other than sleep,” Steve said, as he fell down on the bed with Danny. “But I’m not spending another night not in bed with you.”

Danny nodded. “Agreed. I do have to point out that it can’t be later than, what, two?”

“Well, we don’t have to _stay_ in bed.....” Steve leaned back, as if to indicate leaving was possible.

Danny licked his lips, and pulled Steve closer. “Actually, there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be right now, to be honest.”

“Well, then. What shall we do?”

“I have no idea, but I think....” Danny was searching in Steve’s eyes, watching for his reaction, but also needing Steve to see his own. “I think we’ll figure it out. Together.”

And Steve smirked that perfect Steve smirk, and they did, they figured a whole lot out. Together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’m working on my first ever AU for the boys... that’ll be coming hopefully soon-ish.... 
> 
> And it will be my first chaptered McDanno since my [Doom & Gloom series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/408703)... so, that will be fun, I hope! 
> 
> I also have at least one post-edisode/coda I really need to write...... (I’m still behind on episodes, though, so no spoilers, please.)


End file.
